Wrong again! I never said it was impossible. Just unrealistic and very impractical.
What's unrealistic and impractical is pretending that it's difficult to inventory a store. Every friggin' retail store every friggin' year counts it's inventory, not only for tax purposes but because that's how the annual profits are determines.
Most firms use LIFO, which I think is a bit of a cheat, but it usually makes them look better.
So the IRS has to audit a company and in worse cases it has to go and do an on-site inventory. BFD.
The costs of that are outweighed by the savings of every citizen who no longer has to shell out $60-$100 or more for tax preparation, who no longer need to pay financial advisors to keep track of their IRA's, their 401(k)s, their medical accounts, their money hidden to keep eligibility for Pell Grants and all the other complete BULL**** the federal government forces citizens to make just to protect their own money from their own government.
So let's stop pretending your argument has merit. It's infantile. An inventory is an inventory is no big deal. I've done them for K-Mart, I've done them for my own business, it's a chore. Whoopty do.
Not really. Auditing individuals is largely done on a computerized basis.
Yeah, no one would ever think of using computers to compare a company's recieving invoices with it's shipping invoices to see if someone's pulling a fast one. Why, that would take intelligence, and that's never found in the IRS.
Specific deductions are searched for and flagged for review.
Yeah, I know, I made a boo-boo once, or rather, my accountant failed to write it down and I'd forgotten about it so I got an audit once. No big deal, pay the owed tax, be done with it. So what?
You act like people are individually going through 1040s.
No. YOU'RE acting like I said that because otherwise your argument is totally weak. Actually, your argument totally weak anyway. You want to pretend that the government isn't already using computers to track what businesses are reporting and flagging various lines and independent reports from banks etc.
Tell me how having to send out legions of auditors to physically count inventory is EASIER then having a computer scan for specific flaggable deductions.
It's not "easier".
It's "better", since they're going to a business I don't own and won't be bothered by. Same as everyone else in America who doesn't own a business. You know, the VAST MAJORITY.
Also, with sales tax being the case, there won't be any more EITC fraud. My father, the tax accountant regaled me tales of how people would come in claiming wages that were the EXACT amount needed to maximize that EITC refund.
No chance of that happening under a National Sales Tax.
Given the simplicity of calculating a sales tax, it's practically impossible for anyone to over pay (how many times have you overpaid your sales tax?) and the cost of processing refunds will drop to practically zero.